The EU Pandemic Relief Deal After intense negotiations, long days and nights of clashes and a distinctly sour note underlying the entire summit, European Union leaders finally agreed on an unprecedented 1.82 trillion-euro ($2.1 trillion) budget and COVID recovery package. This agreement provided €750 billion in funding meant to counter the impact of the pandemic, …
Category: Politics
Is the West repeating India’s mistakes? – Part II
Interview with Jayant Bhandari Claudio Grass (CG): In such a vast and incredibly diverse country like India, can top-down measures and centralized policies like affirmative action or caste-based economic incentives effectively force social change and economic equality? Or can they be seen as merely symbolic moves, or perhaps just political maneuvers? Jayant Bhandari (JB): The government …
Is the West repeating India’s mistakes?
Interview with Jayant Bhandari: Part I Following the publication of our last conversation with Jayant Bhandari, I received a lot of interesting feedback and remarks. The common denominator of all those comments was the astonishment of many Western readers at the real conditions and dynamics on the ground in India. In fact, I was surprised …
War on poverty, or just war on the poor?
As the dust is now begging to settle, both from the heights of the COVID panic and from the riots that shook the western world, we are starting to get an idea about where we stand after this unprecedented and tumultuous time. We are able to begin taking stock of the damage that was inflicted …
The attitude should be gratitude
During these increasingly polarized times, it is easy for logical debates to give way to emotionally charged shouting matches. Once the idea of free dialogue is gone, riots, destruction and violence are sure to follow, as we’ve seen in almost the entire Western world over the last weeks. However, there is a much more important …
“The illusions of Keynesianism create a morally corrupt society” – Part II
Part I can be found here Claudio Grass (CG): Overall, apart from the obvious economic consequences of the crisis, do you also see geopolitical and social ones, on a wider scale? Given all these “moving parts”, from the upcoming US election and internal frictions in the EU to the Hong Kong tensions and the rising …
“The illusions of Keynesianism create a morally corrupt society”
Interview with Jayant Bhandari: Part I of II The global economic shutdown has inflicted unprecedented damage and caused widespread destruction both in the economy and in our societies. While the true scale of the crisis is yet to be revealed, we already have enough data to support the case for a deep recession that will likely …
The War On Cash – COVID Edition Part II
The digital “toll” It doesn’t require too dark an imagination to realize the gravity of the concerns over the digital yuan. China is a true pioneer when it comes surveillance, censorship and political oppression and the digital age has given an incredibly efficient and effective arsenal to the state. Adding money to that toolkit was …
The War On Cash – COVID Edition Part I
The corona crisis has already taken a very high toll and caused deep damage in our societies and our economies, the extent of which is yet to become apparent. We have seen its impact on productivity, on unemployment, on social cohesion and on political division. However, there is another very worrying trend that has been …
Reject the “Next Generation EU Plan”
The Václav Klaus Institute urging the Czech Government to reject the dangerous Ursula von der Leyen´s plan It is rather rare that I share articles on my channel that are not from my own pen. The following article is therefore an exception and for good reason. It is written by none other than the former …